


backstairs affairs

by beatricethecat



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, If Helena came back to the Warehouse, TV Cop Show, Vague mid/late season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 05:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12698226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatricethecat/pseuds/beatricethecat
Summary: One shot where Helena blunders a retrieval and gets hurt. Myka cares for her as they watch a TV cop show. Just an opportunity to write some silly fluff.





	backstairs affairs

**Author's Note:**

> Vague mid/late season 4. Instinct never happened. Leena’s still with us. Claudia’s Caretaker. B&W are an established thing.

A woosh of cold air whisps snow into the foyer as Myka enters the B&B. She drops her keys into a bowl and begins brushing off her jacket, but slows to a stop as a muffled groan draws her attention. When the groan swells to a moan, she throws her jacket onto a bench and kicks her boots off then hurries down the hall. 

“Stop moving, let me help you," she says, eyes scanning Helena as she attempts to shift on the couch. She kneels next to her and gently lifts Helena’s arm—the one in a sling—then rearranges the blanket and pillow underneath. “Where's Claudia?" 

"Caretaker business," Helena says, her non-restrained hand wafting upward as if blown by a puff of wind then flopping down limply.

Myka meets Helena’s gaze, but Helena’s eyes never fully focus, instead, loll past her towards the glowing screen. 

“What are you watching?" Myka says, looking over her shoulder to see what’s there. 

“Some nonsense Claudia put on. ‘Easy to follow in my condition,' she said." 

“Why’s the sound off?"

“Is it?" 

Myka looks at Helena and quirks a brow. Helena's painkillers are hardcore, but she's too fixated on the show to _not_ notice the sound's off. She twists at the waist and watches for a few beats, then turns all the way around and sides to the floor, leaning her back against the couch. 

As the action unfolds, she sees why Claudia put his show on, and “easy to follow" has little to do with it. The sultry-eyed, pouty-lipped, shoot-from-the-hip protagonist is why, especially the way she swaggers across the screen. When Helena returned from astrolabe duty, there was a type of show she’d become addicted to, the female-fronted police drama. Not only the show itself but a specific female character, wronged in some way, fighting tooth and nail for what’s right. Such a stereotype in this modern age, but Helena finds the repetition fascinating as each heroine differs in motivation. Claudia says the character's remind Helena of Myka, but Myka sees little resemblance. 

In this instance, an attractive, dark blonde, dressed in a too-casual-for-this-event but hot-for-her dress is holding hands with an with an impeccably suited, roguishly handsome man. He accents her nicely and they chat while walking down a red-carpeted hallway, into what looks like an ornately decorated office or den. The man closes the door and abruptly pins the woman to the wall in what first appears to be rough flirtation, then the shot cuts to her wrists straining as he cuffs them too tightly. He sneers as he speaks and the woman laughs at whatever he said, then knees him in the groin unceremoniously. A fight then ensues, one over dominance rather than escape.

“That’s impossible in those shoes,” Helena huffs, breaking Myka’s concentration. 

"You wear heels in the field sometimes."

“Boots, darling, not stilettos."

“That's a stunt double anyway."

“Really?” Helena says, craning her neck and squinting as if it will allow her to see the switching of bodies. “How disappointing. And misleading to those choosing a career in government.”

Myka snickers, and pulls a corner of Helena's blanket around her shoulders. They fall silent while watching the scene continue.

The woman is overpowered, and tied to a chair, then beaten while being questioned by the man. During a lull in the interrogation, she hangs her head and spits blood from her mouth, then looks up and smiles devilishly at her captor. Just then the door bursts open. 

"Oh, no. Not Johnny No-face again,” Helena mumbles. 

"Johnny who?"

"Claudia’s moniker. Stereotypical male stepping in to save the day. Love interest of the pretty blonde." 

"You think she's pretty?” Myka says, focusing the blonde. Blood drips from a cut on her forehead, but her hair is somehow perfectly arranged. 

“I find her eyes expressive, captivatingly doe-like. Quite like your own."

“My eyes aren’t…they’re not doe-like,” Myka says, turning toward Helena.

“Lost in an emerald sea so deep, I’m wont to look away.” 

Myka knows Helena is talking about her, not the blonde, but still…where is this coming from? Helena's gaze is glazed over, but the look in her eyes so adoring it elicits a half smile from Myka. 

Satisfied with Myka's gesture, Helena's eyes drift back to the TV, and Myka turns around, analyzing the scene in front of her. The interrogator now lies in a lump on the floor, unconscious, while Johnny No-face talks to the woman, still bound in the chair. She studies the woman for a minute, then looks at the man. 

"Is _he_ more your type?” Helena asks. 

Myka flinches. “No." The last time they went through this, it was awkward enough for a lifetime. No need to rehash. 

The blonde holds up a pair of handcuffs, and from the look on her face, she broke out of them before the man arrived.

"Look, she was handcuffed. She seems pretty capable otherwise. She would have gotten out on her own, without the dude.” 

"As you would have, had I not interfered?"

Myka flinches again. Not the change of topic she was hoping for. “We’ve gone through this," Myka says, wondering what in her tone set Helena down this path.

“I saved you from that artifact."

“You fell down the stairs and took me with you. And I fell on top of you. Now your shoulder's dislocated, and your ribs are bruised. We’re lucky things weren’t worse.”

Myka braces for an argument but Helena's attention flicks back to the screen. She studies Helena, adding “lack of follow through” to the list of side effects from Helena’s drugs. Not that she's complaining, it’s just odd. 

On TV, the pretty blonde now sits at a table, surveilling a long haired brunette stationed at a different table. The brunette is spying on a bottled blonde in a lab coat, camped out at yet another table. 

“Intriguing,” Helena says. 

“Who’s the brunette?”

“The blonde’s notes are written in Cyrillic.”

“Which blonde?”

“The pretty one."

"Talk about stereotypical,” Myka huffs. 

"What if they’re lovers?”

“Who?”

“The brunette and the pretty blonde."

“Not on a show like this."

“Why ever not?”

“Um,” Myka’s mind fills with a flurry of lame but institutionalized excuses. “There’s the Cold War for one. And you said the blonde's probably dating that guy.”

“Johnny No-face.”

“Yeah. So she wouldn’t…well, typically…switch teams.”

“How unfortunate,” Helena grumbles.

Helena slumps down in the couch, obviously disappointed by Myka’s statement. Myka worries that in Helena’s mercurial state, a familiar diatribe may be on the horizon, the one on how disappointing the twenty-first century has been where sexuality is concerned. 

“Why don’t we make up stuff. Play the parts ourselves. I'll be the blonde; you be the brunette,” she says, purposefully steering the conversation elsewhere. "I’m...defending my country, while you’re…stealing secret plans." 

“You’ve already indicated they’re meant to be enemies. I’ve no desire to portray such roles.” 

“Couldn’t they be enemies and lovers?” 

Myka shifts and looks up at Helena, utilizing the doe-eyes she’s been told she’s in possession of. 

“Da,” Helena says, and smiles dozily, draping her good arm around Myka’s shoulders. 

“Don’t do the accent,” Myka says, cringing at the sound. 

“I’m meant to be Russian, and I not?"

“Yeah, but…just, don't.” Myka hadn’t realized Helena feigning an accent would remind her, rather unpleasantly, of Emily Lake.

"Let’s watch some more,” Myka says, placing her hand over Helena’s and lacing their fingers together. They look back at the screen, where now the brunette and pretty blonde are sitting at the table together, conspiring over something unknown.

"They've met time and time again, throughout many empires and continents. They're intimately acquainted, destined to be together, yet their superiors haven’t a clue they’re involved.” Helena's voice deepens and formalizes, sounding like a voiceover from a movie trailer.

Myka nods at Helena, absently, and studies the pair on the screen. They’ve tracked down the man, the one knocked out by Johnny No-face previously, and have tied him to a chair. 

“Do you think I could be a spy?” Myka asks.

“No,” Helena scoffs. 

“Why not?"

“You’re far too earnest."

“No, I’m not."

“You’d never perform a bludgeoning such as that.” 

“She’s just slapping him around a little….oof,” Myka says, squeezing Helena’s hand and closing her eyes as the brunette shoots the man in the knee.

“ _That’s_ why you'd never be a spy."

"I’m not going to shoot someone just to get information."

“You’ve never been tempted?"

“Well, Pete, but mostly to shut him up.” Myka laughs at her own joke, and her laugh ends in a snort.

The blonde and brunette smile at each as they divvy up papers found in the (now dead) man's open briefcase, their body language much friendlier than before. 

“After this, they'll tumble madly into bed, and Johnny whots-its will be all but forgotten,” Helena says.

“TV doesn’t work that way,” Myka laments, shaking her head. 

“One can dream,” Helena says, tensing her arm around Myka’s neck, hugging her close.

As the show cuts to a secondary plot thread, Myka's gaze wanders towards the coffee table.

"How many pills did you take?” she asks at the sight of several open bottles.

"All of them."

“Helena!" 

"Claudia disbursed them before she...” 

Helena’s arm, the one in a sling, lifts as if to waft in the air. Myka places her hand on top and guides it back down before it rises too far. In the process, she turns her wrist to check the time and scowls. It’s too early for drugs. No wonder Helena’s out of it.

“Marvelous inventions, these pills, much better than opium."

“Opium?"

“You’re marvelous as well. Much prettier than that pretty blonde." Helena lifts up and leans forward to kiss Myka but jerks back in pain before she reaches her target.

“Easy there,” Myka says, fussing with Helena’s placement on the couch. “You just got out of the hospital."

"Did I? I can’t recall."

 _Sooo out of it,_ Myka thinks and smiles while completing Helena’s kiss. She settles back into place in front of the couch and reorients Helena’s good arm where it previously had been then turns her attention back to the TV.

“Wow. That was quick. The Russian’s dead.”

“No,” Helena says, sounding genuinely concerned. “Let’s hope our heroine's allowed time to mourn the death of her timeless lover."

“Uh-uh,” Myka says, squinting at the screen. “She’s not in Europe anymore. South America, I think."

“These spies are certainly…well…traveled,” Helena says, her words slowing as she yawns. 

“So are we,” Myka says. “ _And_ we serve our country, just like them. But I like our job better."

Helena’s hand goes limp and slips from Myka's shoulder, falling to rest over her chest. Myka glances up and smiles. Helena’s fallen asleep.

“I like coming home to you, even when you think you saved me when you didn’t,” Myka says. She threads a lock of Helena’s hair behind her ear and kisses her forehead. 

When she turns back to the screen, the pretty blonde is "getting it on" with Johnny No-face. She missed that transition, not that she really cares, but for some reason, she finds the proceedings hard to watch. Maybe it’s the way the scene is cut, or the lack of chemistry between actors, but the whole scenario looks forced upon the plot. She clicks the remote to read the show summary, and it begins, “In this fifth and final season....” 

_Typical,_ she thinks, and turns off the TV.

“I don’t know what I’m going do with you when the drugs wear off,” she says, quietly, as she turns toward Helena. "But you’re so adorable right now, I don’t care." Helena makes a tiny, equally adorable noise as if responding to Myka's words and Myka combs her fingers through Helena's hair.

"Maybe we’ll play spies one day, just for fun. You’d have to be English, though, like, 'James Bond’ English, without the sexist and trope-y stuff. And I could be…does Canada have spies?"


End file.
